PITTSBURGH — Federal prosecutors told jurors Monday that their case against celebrity pathologist Cyril Wecht showed that Wecht used the Allegheny County Coroner's office, and some cadavers processed there, as though he owned them.

"This is the real issue: Where did all the money go? Where did all the benefit flow?" Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Stallings asked the jury in his closing rebuttal argument Monday.

The jury today was to begin deliberating the charges, mostly mail and wire fraud, after 3Z\x hours of closing arguments and another hour of legal instructions by U.S. District Judge Arthur Schwab.

Wecht has made millions for his private investigations into deaths. But the 76-year-old doctor's career could be in mortal danger if he's convicted of even one count.

Defense attorney Jerry McDevitt argued that prosecutors were "making a federal case" out of little more than "legal buckshot" and "hoping that one pellet will kill the bird."

Assistant U.S. Attorney James Wilson told jurors things were so topsy-turvy under Wecht that his private secretary had reserved parking and an access card for the county office, where she ordered government employees on private errands for Wecht.

But McDevitt said Wecht's transgressions, if any, were nitpicking infractions that didn't seem to upset anybody but federal prosecutors in Pittsburgh.

Prosecutors allege Wecht also pocketed about $20,000 a year by overbilling private clients for air fare and charging for limousine rides he never took using bogus travel agency invoices.

But McDevitt said the only three private clients who testified for the government said they thought Wecht's services were worth the money, overcharges included. He also accused prosecutors of trying to bulldoze the jury with an avalanche of documents.

McDevitt noted that 24 of the 41 counts involve faxes that cost the county a total of $3.96 to send.

But the prosecutors argued that Wecht benefited by ripping off the county and his clients.

His county secretary, Eileen Young, was paid as much as $69,000 a year by the county — and up to $27,000 a year extra by Wecht. Young's work days, however, were consumed with duties as "office manager" for Wecht's private practice, Wilson said.

Wecht is also accused of having deputies circumvent rules that prevent unclaimed cadavers from being donated to science for at least 30 days. Wecht did that so the bodies could be dissected at an autopsy program he ran at Carlow University, the prosecutors said. In exchange, the school gave him free lab and office space, prosecutors said.